The politics of Jonas Gwangwa’s music have stayed constant over the years, and are also apparent in the eight albums he has released in South Africa since returning from 30 years of exile.
Two musicals set in working class mining communities – one in the UK and the other in South Africa – have diametrically opposed messages: one of hope; the other, despair.
In a track called Bring it Back Home, Hugh Masekela bemoans the tendency by politicians, who after ascending to power, discard the people who helped them get there.
Andrea De Silva/Reuters
Concert organisers began to compete for government contracts. Often these contracts came with conditions as to who, among musicians, was desirable at government events.
Ph.D. fellow in European Research Council (ERC) project "Apartheid- The Global Itinerary: South African Cultural Formations in Transnational Circulation 1948-1990", led by Prof. Louise Bethlehem, Hebrew University of Jerusalem